CONQUER | Nicole Beck

Cutting Through the Noise: Improving Weakly Supervised Machine Learning for Practical Applications

April 1, 2021 in Undergrad Research Highlights /by Nicole Beck

Esteban Safranchik hopes to harness the potential of weakly supervised machine learning to impact fields beyond computer science. Now a PhD student at the University of Washington, Esteban got his start in research as an undergraduate at Brown University. His work was published at the 2020 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Conference and is also used by economists and data scientists.

Goodbye Accounting, Hello High-performance Computing

March 1, 2021 in Undergrad Research Highlights /by Nicole Beck

Janaan Lake is living proof that it’s never too late to pursue a career in computing. After working 17 years as a Certified Public Accountant, she decided the time was right to pursue a computer science degree and enrolled at the University of Utah. “Although changing careers in midlife has been more challenging than I anticipated, it has also been more rewarding.”

Advancing the Theory of Programmable Matter for Swarm Robotics and Multi-Agent Systems

February 1, 2021 in Undergrad Research Highlights /by Nicole Beck

Joseph Briones wants to help robots work together more effectively. While double majoring in Computer Science and Math at Arizona State University (ASU), Joseph has worked towards extending the theory of programmable matter for applications in swarm robotics and multi-agent robot systems. His undergraduate research revolved around the 3D Amoebot model for self-organizing particle systems, a 3D programmable matter simulator. His work also resulted in two publications to the 2018 and 2019 International Symposium on Self-Stabilizing Systems. Currently, he is a computer science PhD student at his alma mater, furthering the research he started as an undergraduate.

Here for Good: Cancer Detection, Community Service, and Beyond

January 4, 2021 in Undergrad Research Highlights /by Nicole Beck

Aleesha Chavez, a senior Computer Science major at Northwest Nazarene University (NNU) in Idaho, embodies her school’s motto of “Here for Good” as she brings her passion for helping others and her love of CS to research, teaching, and service.

From Theory to Practice: Prototyping More Robust Termination Checking for the Coq Proof Assistant

December 1, 2020 in Undergrad Research Highlights /by Nicole Beck

After graduating from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Spring 2020, Jonathan Chan continues to pursue his research interests in programming languages (PL) as a master’s student at UBC. His work has resulted in a proof of concept for more robust termination checking in Coq, an interactive proof assistant.

Reimagining Human Sensation

November 2, 2020 in Undergrad Research Highlights /by Nicole Beck

Christian “Chris” Hill wants to transform the way we sense the world around us. His interest in human augmentation and sensory extension research began early in his college experience. During his second semester at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU Boulder), Chris took a new course on children’s education, human augmentation, and transhumanism taught by Mike Eisenberg, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Institute of Cognitive Science.